


First Encounters

by Merfilly



Series: Dinah's Death Fics [1]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Dark, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 13:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1348588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the One Year Later, Dinah brings all her skill to bear. Is it enough?</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Encounters

They had pushed each other to the brink of exhaustion. She had been good, had fought him nearly to a standstill before the world went to hell, handicapped by having her team there, watching her.

This time she's alone, and she had spent the year getting better. Whereas he…he had spent much of it incarcerated, coming to grips with what he had done while caught up in the madness that Joey's possession had left on him.

He's falling back on tricks learned at Camp Washington and in the rice paddies just to stay out of her reach, out of those near-deadly blows she's inflicting. Even at his speed, she's keeping him from reaching any of his weapons or distractions; she's gotten faster than he remembered, and that damn Shiva training shows in his difficulty to predict the next strike she'll use.

He loves her all over again, even as he prepares to use her own trick on her.

She must feel it coming, purposely blocks his incoming blow with the arm he broke, and then spins around the blow, taking his arm with him. She's too small to get leverage, too small to turn this into a hold, and yet…

He stumbles down to one knee as she uses her momentum, the coiled tension in his arm to hold, pulling her legs up and kicking them into his legs as a springboard away.

It's a good move to put him off balance, but it is her mistake.

He's got a blade and a hold out pistol in reach of his hands as he works on his balance in that split moment while she's readying for a new attack. He would never use a knife against her as a melee weapon, but throwing it is a different story.

The blade flicks out, flying precisely for a shoulder, and she dodges, as he predicted. She comes out of the dodge to see the snub nose pointed at her face, and immediately locks down her instinct to slap at it, as she would with anyone slower.

"Just business, sister. I never let my contracts drop." He's watching her face, seeing the absolute recognition in her eyes that he has the control here now.

"Don't." No fear in her eyes, her body, her voice. Just an understanding that it is his choice for her to live or die. She knows his code, knows that she is now within the realm of true threat to him, to his way of life.

"You'd start the fight all over, here or another place, if I let you go," he reasons, finger tensing.

"But you don't want to," she points out just as calmly as if they were discussing a restaurant to eat at.

The gun fires once, after the slightest change of aim.

"I may not want to," he murmurs, casting aside the weapon to kneel at her fallen side. Her eyes are fading already, testimony to his love for her in the form of a quick killing shot to the heart. He does not add anything else, as she slips entirely from their world to the next.

Maybe she and Addie would have a good laugh over him, and share their bitter stories.


End file.
